• bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    This reminds me of a famous quote from Karl Marx:

    “If you call yourself a communist, you must be a communist”

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      In a way yes. Except other communists will always complain that any attempt of implementing communism isn’t true communism, because they always fail.
      But people who favor democracy, have less trouble identifying that communism doesn’t really work, and accept it as communism despite the failures of actually living up to the ideals.
      The current communist regime in China came to power through a communist revolution by the people, at what point exactly did it fail to be communist?

      • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        I think your problem is assuming that just because a revolution is led by a person who purports to be communist, therefore the new regime established by that person must also be communist, even after almost a hundred years of political evolution. Just because they put “The People’s X” on everything doesn’t mean that any of it is actually operating in a way which upholds any of the ideals of communism as described by Marx.

        China is an authoritarian capitalist oligarchy. There’s some state intervention for welfare, but honestly not that much more than a country like the US (eg. both have for-profit healthcare, both have a pretty jingoist/exploitative attitude toward other countries, both have a prison-industrial complex, both have rampant wealth inequality).